Protects priceless heritage and data from targeted cyberattacks

Overview

The Canadian Museum of History welcomes over 1.2 million visitors a year, making it one of the most-visited museums in Canada. Founded in 1856, it is one of Canada’s oldest public institutions and a respected center of research.

The museum houses more than four million artifacts, specimens, artwork, documents, and multimedia recordings, with more than 218,000 artifacts accessible from an online database. The museum will take a leading role in the country’s 150th birthday celebration, reopening its 4,100-square meter Canadian History Hall in 2017.

Challenges

As a Canadian Crown Corporation and public venue, the museum’s level of exposure is high. Government organizations are increasingly targeted by hackers who deface websites and launch distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) and ransomware attacks. “Our job is to protect Canada’s physical artifacts and digital history. We have a responsibility to ensure that the data is accurate and intact for generations to come,” said Phillipe Lemieux, IT Director of the Canadian History Museum.

The museum has multiple points of possible infiltration: employees with memory sticks, phishing attacks via email and social media, visitors and contractors connecting to Wi-Fi, exhibit computers, café, and Cine+ theater PoS devices. The museum had prevented ransomware attacks in the past, but it wanted to increase its level of protection. “Fixing the damage takes a lot of money and time. It also impacts productivity because staff is busy diagnosing problems instead of implementing new services,” said Lemieux.

In addition, the museum’s independent security products provided no centralized oversight into traffic behavior. “We knew we had to eliminate those security silos. We needed a more holistic approach to cyber security that offered a clear and complete understanding of the kinds of traffic flowing through and outside our network,” said Lemieux.

"System integration is the key to mounting a successful security defense. Trend Micro is not just a suite of products, it’s an integrated end-to-end solution."

Phillipe Lemieux,IT Director, Canadian Museum of History

Why Trend Micro

After product testing, Lemieux and his team chose Trend Micro™ Deep Discovery™ Inspector. “Trend Micro provided end-to-end protection from the network edge to the endpoints. Deep Discovery gave us a truly unified view of cyber security,” said Lemieux.

Lemieux’s managed service provider, Compugen, implemented Deep Discovery™ for the museum. Compugen is one of Canada’s largest IT solution providers, and over the past 6 years, Compugen and the museum have built up a strong, managed environment that allows museum IT staff to optimize technology to provide new innovations for museum visitors.

“Together, we review and consider the environment so that new concerns are dealt with before they become an issue. Security is always on the agenda and this was the time for a solution upgrade,”
Dan Guerette, Service Delivery Manager, Compugen Inc.

During the implementation, additional security products that integrate seamlessly with Deep Discovery were considered. “It became obvious that our email gateway and anti-virus protection could be strengthened,” said Lemieux. Soon after, Trend Micro™ OfficeScan™ and Trend Micro™ Email Security Gateway solutions were also deployed.

Solution

Trend Micro™ Deep Discovery™ anchors a comprehensive set of advanced threat detection technologies specifically designed to recognize and stop DDOS and ransomware attacks. “System integration is the key to mounting a successful security defense. Trend Micro is not just a suite of products, it’s an integrated end-to-end solution,” said Lemieux.

“Cybersecurity is an incredibly important consideration for today’s organizations and Trend Micro is a strategic partner of Compugen. Together, we have built a strong security system that will ensure that the museum’s data is protected both now and in the future,” Julie Zanatta, Sales Director, Ottawa and Atlantic Region, Compugen.

Trend Micro™ OfficeScan™ is now the museum’s standardized security software on all endpoints, including PoS devices. Its advanced filtering software detects and stops malware, ransomware, and other nasty variants as they emerge.

Trend Micro™ Email Security Gateway reduces the amount of ransomware and other malware reaching the gateway. “A key feature is its quarantine zone, which lets users connect to the gateway’s central management console and release emails as needed,” said Lemieux.

Results

The Canadian Museum of History now has powerful integrated security that protects the entire network. Although Lemieux and his team, with support from Compugen have just scratched the surface of the extensive capabilities of Trend Micro™ Deep Discovery™, the solution has already proved its worth. “With Deep Discovery, we can quickly pinpoint and address areas of risk,” said Lemieux.

Since implementing Trend Micro solutions, there have been no incidents of ransomware, the most dangerous threat to the museum. Reports show all three Trend Micro security products working together to thwart attacks. “Integrated cyber security is a ‘must have’ to mitigate the enormous risks out there today. Ransomware costs can be astronomical, so it’s much smarter to be proactive,” said Lemieux.

For Lemieux, the first step is to see what is going on and do something about it. “We now know exactly what is happening with our network in amazing detail,” said Lemieux.

What's Next

Next year Lemieux’s team will move its video surveillance system onto the network, and Trend Micro™ Deep Discovery™ will secure those endpoints as well. “We are also looking at possible cloud migration scenarios,” said Lemieux. Working together with Compugen and Trend Micro, trusted partners are in place for Lemieux to protect Canada’s most treasured artifacts.